–of seeing son take his last breath

AS a veteran broadcast journalist, Claudette Fredericks would have by now grown accustomed to matters of life and death.
But to stand helplessly by and watch as your own son draw his last breath must have no doubt proven too much — even for her.

What was even more heart-wrenching was that mere hours before his life was snuffed out, he had asked to see his mother. Little did he know that it would be the last time he would see her, as the very lance corporal who placed the call to his mother ended up killing him.
Just the day before — on Saturday to be precise — 34-year-old street vendor Marlon Fredericks was beaten near to death after he allegedly tried to disarm a police rank who attempted to arrest him for a number of offences he had allegedly committed.

The incident was recorded in great detail for all the world to see on Facebook. Less than 24 hours later, he was dead; shot in the back by a City Constabulary Lance Corporal on Regent Street, just across the way from the Bourda Market.
Fredericks, executive producer and presenter of First Look, a morning TV show on HBTV Channel 9, recalled the horrifying experience.

“I was inside the building a few feet from the counter area, and I see my son come running towards us. He tried to leap over the counter, but didn’t make it so he ran around the counter…
“It was four family members, and we tried to stop him, saying, ‘Marlon, why are you running? Don’t run!

“So he manoeuvred through us and was outside already… So we run outside. Then I heard this report, a shot. And my son turn around and face us, and started going down.”
But even though she was right there on the scene when it happened, she somehow did not realise that her son had been shot, Fredericks said.

An hour would pass, but no one thought to get help for the dying man. “There wasn’t any urgency to get any help for him,” she said, adding:
“I remember seeing the corporal while Marlon was going down against the building; he was just standing there, looking at him… It was almost as if to make sure that he was done, before he moved off the scene.”

She doesn’t deny that her son was on drugs; but he was no thief, she said. She recalled doing everything a mother possibly can to help him kick the habit.
“He went to ‘rehab’ on two occasions; the first time at Phoenix, he spent less than the period that they have for them, which is six months,” Fredericks said.
“He spent like four months and came out… Two years after, the habit continued, so we got him into the Salvation Army. He spent the full six months there; and just as he was going to be qualified for their halfway-house system, he left.”

An extraordinarily gifted child, Marlon first attended St Joseph High, and much later President’s College. He had even landed a scholarship in Trinidad to train as a pilot.
As investigations into the shooting to death of Marlon Fredericks continue, the lance corporal who fired the fatal shot and a City Hall constable have been detained.
According to the post-mortem, the cause of death was a complication to the lower back due to a gunshot wound.